Presses are used for stamping, punching, clinching, nut insertion, shearing and other functions on metals and other materials. Presses generally are designed to impart forces onto working materials and these forces are generated through mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic or air actuated devices. Specialized presses have been developed for working with parts that have particularly deep sections, such as channel letters. Channel letter for example have a back plate which is clinched to a side wall producing a deep and wide U-channel which is then used for production of letters of various shapes. These channel letters can exceed 10 inches in depth and in order to fasten the back plate to the side wall, the press must have sufficient reach in order to penetrate this depth so that the pressing operation which in this particular case is clinching can be carried out.
Typically in order to carry out the clinching process, the two parts to be clinched together must be sandwiched between male and female tooling components, wherein these tooling components are brought into contact with the parts to be assembled via the press. Therefore, when one wishes to clinch together two parts having a large depth profile, such as channel letters, the difficulty that one faces is presenting the parts in between the male and female tooling components. Currently the practice is to have a long upright standing fixed lower tooling which is long enough to penetrate the entire depth of the channel letter. The upper tooling is attached to an upper hydraulic cylinder having a very long stroke capability such that when the upper hydraulic cylinder is in the retracted position, the operator can manoeuvre the channel letter onto the lower fixed tooling. This set up requires the use of expensive long stroke hydraulic cylinders with the associated safety issues that arise when the upper tooling approaches the part in order to carry out clinching and/or other pressing operations.
It would be desirable to be able to provide for a long reach press which eliminates the safety issues and the expense of the requirement of having a long reach hydraulic type cylinder in order to achieve the long strokes required for parts having large depth profiles.